The Enemy of the People by Jim Acosta

Author:Jim Acosta
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

ACOSTA: How can the White House Chief of Staff, how can the Press Secretary, how can this White House still be standing behind him when Mr. Porter appeared to be acknowledging that he had this past?

SHAH: I think it’s fair to say that we all could have done better over the last few hours—or last few days in dealing with this situation.

My sources told me at the time that Trump hated that statement from Raj. In Trumpworld, this was a violation of the rules: you never admit a mistake.

What happened with Porter added up to be much more than a failure on the part of Trump’s staff. The code of ethics of the Trump White House had revealed itself yet again, as the president fell back into a familiar pattern. When it comes to allegations of sexual misconduct, Trump almost always stands with the accused and not the accuser. He had done this before; he would do it again. Speaking to reporters, Trump expressed sympathy for his former staff secretary, noting that Porter had proclaimed his innocence.

“He also, as you probably know, says he’s innocent and I think you have to remember that,” Trump said. “He said very strongly yesterday that he’s innocent so you have to talk to him about that, but we absolutely wish him well, he did a very good job when he was at the White House.”

That statement, siding with Porter, was another reminder of just how Trump didn’t seem to understand the president’s role of providing moral leadership in a situation like this. This would not have been tolerated at a Fortune 500 company, and yet it was happening at the White House.

All this was exacerbated, of course, by the fact that Trump lacked a top-flight press shop. But as I’ve said before, there wasn’t much of a choice. Too many Republicans in Washington simply wouldn’t (and won’t) work for Trump. I could name names here, but I won’t. That would be wrong. But privately, a good number of well-known Republican operatives have told me they could never serve in the Trump administration. Others tried it and walked away, viewing the situation as unworkable. That left Trump with a lot of folks who, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t have been working somewhere as important as the White House.

But the staff is not the story here, and this is key. This is why I keep coming back to what a top GOP congressional aide told me during the 2016 campaign. The staffer, who shall remain anonymous, sounded almost helpless watching from the sidelines as Trump vanquished a field of sixteen establishment candidates to win the party’s nomination.

“Our top candidates are just playing into people’s worst prejudices rather than rising above them. And so this is what we get. The bubble will crash at some point,” the aide said, worrying that Trump would ultimately leave the party in “tatters.”

“We reap what we sow,” he added.

In the early days of the administration, it was equally revealing to listen to the GOP officials who had been on the inside.

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